Role players embark on real-life business venture

Like most Dungeons & Dragons players, Alex Jarzebinski, 33, of Anaheim takes his games seriously.

He's been a tabletop role player for 20 years and a dungeon master, or rule keeper, for 10.

He spends as much as 20 hours a week writing scripts, preparing music and mapping out scenarios for his informal tabletop club, Orange County Gaming Group, to act out on Saturday nights.

But Jarzebinski, a Wharton MBA grad, hopes to turn his role-playing passion into an entrepreneurial quest. In October, Orange County Gaming Group won more than $13,000 on Kickstarter to create music tracks, voice-overs and sound effects to accompany the game.

The fruits of the project – labeled RealmSound 2.0 – will be received by backers this year in the form of digital audio files.

Adding audio to a board game may sound like a far-fetched concept. But for Owen Lansberg, 24, a pastor at Hope International University and Orange County Gaming Group member, it's a no-brainer.

“Imagine nowadays watching the credits of Star Wars without that John Williams amazing score,” Lansberg said. “It would be super boring.”

As players act out scenarios, the dungeon master sets the tone with music. A dragon roars and swords clash as players roll dice in turn-based combat.

Using Jarzebinski's audio-sourcing business, AudioCatch, Orange County Gaming Group is parsing out production to voice actors online. Talent includes Joe J. Thomas from Blizzard's “Diablo 3.”

Kickstarter, a crowd-funding site, has become a business catapult for tech-related products and media. Since its inception in 2009, Kickstarter has awarded $179million to video- and tabletop-game projects, according to its website's stats page. It is the site's highest-grossing category.

In 2012, Irvine-based Oculus VR, a manufacturer of virtual-reality headsets, received $2.4million from 9,500 backers.

Star Citizen, a first-person spaceship simulator being produced by Los Angeles-based Cloud Imperium Games Corporation, took in $2.1million from its 2012 Kickstarter campaign.

While RealmSound 2.0 isn't a business yet, Orange County Gaming Group hopes to launch a new subscription-based service called Battlebards in the near future to provide tabletop gamers sound-effect boards and music.

“The reason we've decided to do this as a business is to create an engine to fuel sourcing audio forever, for as long as this business survives,” Jarzebinski said. “Otherwise, we are reliant on Kickstarter to keep this dream going.”